The Mel Eves Column: Why West Bromwich Albion fans need to take a reality check

Let’s look at some facts. Before yesterday, they were lying seventh in the Premier League, averaging 1.5 points per game with more than half the season gone; two points and a place above Liverpool, a point behind Arsenal, having played one more game than the Gunners.

Yet to listen to some Baggies fans on internet message boards and radio phone-ins this week, you would almost think it was their team that was facing a relegation scrap.

Yes, they have lost three in a row in the Premier League, but who have they been beaten by? Manchester United at Old Trafford (for heaven’s sake!) a good Fulham side and a Reading outfit who they bossed for 80 minutes and who will probably not have a ten-minute stretch like the final ten minutes of that game for many moons to come.

This, Baggies fans, is known as ‘a blip.’ It happens to all teams, all over the world, all the time. Yet Albion’s performances this season have raised their standards massively and once you raise the bar, you can become the victim of heightened expectations.

A few fans start to think that sitting in fourth place in the Premier League is the norm. Suddenly, the manager who carried them to fourth position is a tactical idiot who isn’t good enough and should be sacked.

The other thing they should do is take a look around the West Midlands. Villa are in a relegation scrap; Birmingham City are in financial meltdown and in serious danger of being relegated to League One; Walsall went two-and-a-half months and 16 games without a win, while if Baggies fans think they’ve had it tough over the last few weeks, they should have tried being a Wolverhampton Wanderers fan over the last twelve months.

It was a lifeless experience watching Wolves in 2012, but look at the attacking options that Steve Clarke has been able to field – Romelu Lukaku, Shane Long, Marc-Antoine Fortune, Peter Odemwingie and 31 goals in 22 league games. When they are on their game, they are the best strikeforce in the West Midlands by a mile.